Mr
Straw and Mr Irving both attended the same
Brentwood, Essex, public school in the 1950s.
pending a full reply, however, Simon Watkins, head
of the "Organised and International Crime
Directorate," acknowledged receipt of both letters
on March 18, 1998); Straw has not replied as of the
end of 1998.

London, December 22, 1997

Dear Jack,

THIS LETTER is a
formal request that the Home Office will refuse, as it is
entitled to (see below), and as the facts set out require it
to, to tender mutual legal assistance to the German embassy
or other authorities in the event that they renew their
attempts to serve on me their purported indictment under
German law for a historical lecture which I delivered in
Weinheim, south-western Germany, in 1990. (The Germans have
gone berserk, introducing various laws for the suppression
of free speech, though under other guises, which your
predecessor Mr Howard rightly refused to see
introduced in the U.K. as being incompatible with our
country's traditions; they appear however to be perfectly
compatible with Germany's well-known past.)

It is plain from the internal papers of the German
judiciary - documents passing between the court in Weinheim,
the provincial Minister of Justice (ugh!) in Stuttgart and
his political master in Bonn, the Federal Ministry of
Justice (ugh! ugh!), that the Germans quite candidly regard
this intended prosecution of myself as being of a political
and not a criminal nature.

I am enclosing pages from the court file which make this
plain. The first is a letter dated June 25, 1997, from the
Court in Weinheim to the provincial Ministry of Justice in
Stuttgart, expressing anxiety lest the British government
detect the political nature of the legal action against me
and accordingly decline to assist the German government
under the Europe Community's convention on Mutual Assistance
in Criminal Matters. The penultimate paragraph of this
German court document reads in translation:-

"In view of the political background of the
trial I request you to examine, and inform me, whether
the co-operation of the British authorities is to be
expected in serving the summons by the route of Mutual
Legal Assistance."

Upon receiving this, the provincial ministry in Stuttgart
wrote on July 14 to the Federal Ministry in Bonn, expressing
the same fears; the last paragraph reads:-

"We request - as soon as possible, given the proximity of
the court hearing date - a ruling on whether there are any
misgivings from your ministry's view. We should moreover
appreciate information whether on the basis of your own
experience it is to be expected that the British
authorities, should they be advised of the political nature
of the misdemeanour, may decline to serve the summons."

Mr Straw, please take this letter as formally bringing to
your notice the political nature of the alleged
misdemeanour.

The significance is that the German authorities, in
calling upon your good offices, are relying on the European
Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, adhered
to by Britain on November 27, 1991. This convention sets out
under Article 2, that

"Assistance may be refused:

(a) if the request concerns an offence which the
requested Party considers a political offence, an offence
connected with a political offence, or a fiscal
offence;

(b) if [. . . etc.]

IT IS WORTH noting
that the German Federal Intelligence Service
(Bundesnachrichten-dienst) has secretly refused to
get dragged into this dirty affair. I received from an
anonymous friend a photocopy of a two-page letter, signed
earlier this year by the head of the BND, protesting to the
head of the German Federal Parliament's law reform
committee, at the latter's attempts to involve him and the
BND in the "notorious" David Irving affair. He protests that
my person and the entire matter involving me are outside the
remit of the BND, and the BND therefore asks to be kept out
of it. The BND chief writes:-

"My personal appreciation is however, that not
only would the facts which the BND may have garnered
overseas, if they were to become public, inevitably do a
disservice to the interests of the present Federal
government, but they would actually seriously damage
them."

The BND, to whom I of course supplied a copy of this
document, have not denied its authenticity.

To summarise, I am being politically persecuted in
Germany for my political beliefs as an historian, and not
for criminal offences (and certainly not for any recognised
as such under British law); I have no criminal record in
Germany. I am enclosing with this letter a legal document
issued by Germany's central criminal records office in
Berlin, which formally certifies that there is no criminal
conviction recorded against my name.

Under German law, it is not permitted to offer any
defence to the allegations: the facts disputed have been
declared offenkundig by their supreme court in
Karlsruhe ("a matter of public knowledge," or roughly the
equivalent of a court taking "judicial notice" of something)
and no defence is permitted, either by witness statement or
documentary evidence.

This is something which no British court would tolerate,
and I hope that the Home Office will not oblige me to obtain
an order of a High Court judge to back up the admittedly lay
opinion that your Office must refuse to render any
assistance to the Germans in their endeavours to suppress
free speech, however camouflaged.

I am also advised that in the premises and under these
circumstances should the Home Office or its servants or
agents, including police officers, attempt to serve on me
again the documents (or similar) which the German embassy
has already requested you to serve, I would have grounds to
claim substantial damages inter alia for trespass and
assault.

Please inform me of your decision in this matter at your
earliest convenience, as I shall have to instruct Counsel in
good time in the event that your advisers - a Mr Simon
Watkin is evidently the nigger in the woodpile - do not see
things the same way as I do.